Surveying the acronyms, slogans and victim names that serve as titles for measures introduced in Congress and other legislative bodies, some of which may graduate to the U.S. Code and other statute books.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

WV Updating Amber Alert

The West Virginia legislature has passed two Bills updating the Amber Alert system in their state. The measures are named after Skylar Neese and Kelsey Smith, abduction victims who tragically died soon after they went missing. Skylar's Law "will require law enforcement agencies to report a suspected abduction or missing child to the amber alert authorities in the initial stages of investigation to facilitate their safe return." The Kelsey Smith Act would, among other things, "requir[e] wireless telecommunications carriers to provide location information to law-enforcement agencies in emergencies." A partial article from the Register-Herald is below.

Skylar Neese and Kelsey Smith lived thousands of miles apart but met a similar, violent fate.
Now, the West Virginia Legislature wants to make sure police have stronger means to deal with missing persons, by putting the final touches Friday on separate bills bearing their names.
Neese vanished last summer from her parents’ home in Star City, only to turn up dead months later in Pennsylvania.
Existing law forbids putting a missing person on the Amber Alert until an abduction is confirmed. In her case, no personal belongings were taken when she left — not even contact lenses — but police initially dismissed her as a runaway.
Under a bill successfully pushed by Delegate Charlene Marshall, D-Monongalia, for whom Neese worked as a House page eight years ago, missing children can be objects of the Amber Alert once police are notified and State Police approve of the notification.
Smith disappeared from a Kansas City shopping center, but a wireless company refused to disclose her cell phone number to police.
A proposed new law now allows police to get such numbers to “ping” a wireless owner so the location can be pinpointed. In Smith’s case, her body was found within 45 minutes after the number was disclosed.